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For poetry the idea is everything the rest is a world of illusion.

Matthew Arnold

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Matthew Arnold
Age: 65 †
Born: 1822
Born: December 24
Died: 1888
Died: April 15
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
School Inspector
University Teacher
Writer
Laleham
Surrey
Idea
Ideas
Everything
World
Illusion
Poetry
Rest

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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Who hesitate and falter life away, and lose tomorrow the ground won today.
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How many minds--almost all the great ones--were formed in secrecy and solitude!
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Like driftwood spares which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man nears man, meets, and leaves again.
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They... who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
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The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
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Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun.
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Eutrapelia . A happy and gracious flexibility, Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.
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On Sundays, at the matin-chime, The Alpine peasants, two and three, Climb up here to pray Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, Ride out to church from Chamberry, Dight with mantles gay, But else it is a lonely time Round the Church of Brou.
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Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears.
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The world hath failed to impart the joy our youth forebodes failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear.
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Below the surface stream, shallow and light, Of what we say and feel below the stream, As light, of what we think we feel, there flows With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we feel indeed.
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Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes Ah, would that I did too!
Matthew Arnold
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Religion--that voice of the deepest human experience.
Matthew Arnold
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God's Wisdom and God's Goodness!--Ah, but fools Mis-define thee, till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness they are God!--what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore. This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules: 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.
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The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience .
Matthew Arnold
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O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!
Matthew Arnold
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The eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness.
Matthew Arnold
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Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath look'd on no religion scornfully That men did ever find.
Matthew Arnold
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Grey time-worn marbles Hold the pure Muses. In their cool gallery, By yellow Tiber, They still look fair.
Matthew Arnold
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But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.
Matthew Arnold